Gish Jen

I never claimed to be “blocked.” You know that word, right? It’s a term familiar even to many people, even those not devoting their days to being writers. Visiting my MFA Residency as an alum this past week, I am reminded there are several ways of being “blocked” as a writer. I’ve denied it until now, but yeah, I’ve been blocked. I have experienced at least three kinds of blockage: not writing much is rare for me and usually just means I’m resting and doing other creative work; writing badly, something that’s absolutely useless but at least it shows on the page‚oh, yes; and writing something I can’t let go of but keep fussing over and fiddling without getting anywhere. That last is where I am now. The most recent novel is done and however eager I might be to continue working on it, it’s time to set it gently aside.

I imagine the Parks Department is trying to figure out what to do here. Last Saturday, we walked to the headland a little over a mile north of our home, then around that headland and the next headland, and all the way to Hug Point beach. If we’d waited another hour for the tide to be fully out, we could probably have reached Hug Point proper. Instead, we were curious about what exactly had closed the parking lot for this popular park. The broken railing you see in the photo was washed away last winter. It’s worse now. The Parks Department probably tried to fix it because you can see fresh wood, but a few months ago, they blocked off the entire parking lot. We are accustomed to seeing the steep lot packed to overflowing in summer and pretty much year around in good weather. But most of last year, the descent was scary. We assume someone was injured trying to get around those broken stairs. We saw people both giving up and working their way around all last summer and into the fall before the lot was barricaded and the weather and tide shortened our walk north. We wonder when this mess will be repaired but expect the Parks Department is waiting for late spring and lower high tides.

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Hello, readers. I wrote the post below before Good was murdered. Good was murdered. I have read the articles, the defense by MAGA, the responses from newspapers around the world by reporters who watched all the videos, and comments from all sides. It is not a capital offense to slowly drive away from someone—even if those someones were police officers, which they weren’t. Not even then is it okay to shoot someone three times in the head… and people bragging about it? This isn’t my country, the country founded on the ideals of respecting every individual’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But here, what I was worried about before:

A couple of things: I am reading Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen, and this morning I found Allison K. Williams’s post “There Is No Closure: Stop Organizing and Start Writing” was in my feed on Tuesday. Despite a rich life deeply engaged in literature or because of that, Allison K. Williams wants closure with her writing.

They connected in my experience.